2013-04-08 作业，下周课上处理。
Part I Skimming and Scanning (15 minutes)
Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the questions.
For questions 1-7, write
Y (for YES) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage;
N (for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage;
NG (for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage.
For questions 8-10, complete the ntences with the information given in the passage. (10 points)
Identity Theft
What happens when you find out that someone has ud your name to get a credit card and has run up thousands of dollars in charges that you are now going to have to convince the credit card company that you are not responsible for? What if they opened bank accounts in your name, committed crimes using your name, or wor?
Credit Card Fraud
Have you ever eaten at a restaurant, paid with a credit card, and forgotten to get your copy of the credit card receipt? Did you know that many of the receipts have your credit card number printed right there for anyone to e and u? And, if you've signed them, your signature is also right there for someone to carefully copy. This can lead to the simplest form of identity theft. With this bit of information, someone can be well on his way to making purchas either by phone or on the Internet using your credit card number. You won't know about it until you get your statement. All they have to have, in most cas, is your mailing address, which can be looked up in a phone book or easily found on the Internet.
Or it can happen when your pre-approved credit card offers fall into the wrong hands. All a person has to do is get the out of your mailbox or trash can and mail them in with a change of address request and start spending. Someone can even apply for a credit card in your name if they have the right information. You won't know a thing about it until the credit card company tracks you down and demands payment for the purchas "you" have racked up.
With a person's name, social curity number and date of birth, someone can get loans, access the person's existing bank accounts, open new bank accounts, lea or buy cars, get insurance, you name it. Think about the things you throw in the trash. Do you throw your pay stubs away once you've recorded the amount in your checkbook? Take a look at some of the information on that emingly unimportant piece of paper:
∙ your full name
∙ your address
∙ your social curity number
∙ your complete bank account number (if you have direct deposit)
∙ your employer and its address
∙ your rate of pay
Now, think about the types of information you have to provide in order to get a credit card or a loan or lea a car. There is very little additional information that is needed in order to get that loan. I recently got a home equity loan and did all but the final signing of the documents over the phone, and faxed all of my financial information directly to the loan officer. It would not have been that difficult to "create" tho documents using someone el's social curity number, bank account numbers and other personal information. That's a scary thought! Imagine finding out that someone had gotten a mortgage in your name. Clearing that up with the bank and getting it off of your credit history would be quite a battle. You are left with the time-consuming task of repairing your credit and getting your finances back on track.
Accessing Personal Information
Your personal information can be found in many places. It can be:
∙ dug out of trash cans and dumpsters, known as "dumpster diving"
∙ memorized or copied by sales clerks and waiters
∙ removed from your mailbox in the form of tax notices, financial account statements and other bills before you have a chance to get them or even know they are there
∙ removed from your employer's files, either cretly or with the help of an inside accomplice
∙ removed from your hospital records, usually with the help of an inside accomplice
∙ removed from your financial lender's files
∙ removed from your landlord's files
∙ purchad (or found free) in online (or offline) databas
∙ collected from "cloned" Websites
∙ stolen from a merchant databa through computer hacking
∙ stolen through hacking into commercial Websites or your personal computer and using software to mirror keystrokes to capture credit card account information
∙ collected from "cloned" chat rooms that include links to outside Websites that offer rvices or products
Basically, anywhere you've provided that information can be a target. Often, employees who have access to the information are bribed or offered a cut of the profits in exchange for personal information about other employees. The more sophisticated the perpetrator (犯罪分子), the more money is stolen and the more people scammed (被骗). Clerks can even put skimmers on the credit card machines that will record credit card information for later u. Temporary employees em to be more frequently involved in identity theft scandals than permanent employees, simply becau fewer background checks are done on them.
What about all of the publicly available information someone can access about you? Sources for this information include:
